Southern in the North Part 2

Moving from the north to the south Part 2: Living and working in Cary, NC
1997-2007

All right, so I graduated from Meredith, and unlike some southern schools, the population as far as I can remember was more southern girls than northern girls. I landed a job at an elementary school in Cary, NC, and I was told by the foreign language coordinator at the time that I was “Very lucky to get a position in Cary as a first year teacher.” I kind of frowned when he said that. I was semi-born in Cary. In the 70s it was a tiny little town with a tiny little Episcopal church. My parents chose to live there because it was dirt cheap. The Cary of my toddler hood was not the Cary I worked in twenty three years later.

The first day the other language teachers welcomed me and showed me the ropes. I remember telling one of them that I lived in Cary as a toddler/preschooler but I grew up in Greensboro and hadn’t really lived anywhere else. They laughed that C.A.R.Y. had become an acronym for Central Area for Relocated Yankees. I still didn’t know what they were talking about. Then I got into the groove of the school. My boss was a Yankee. A lot of my colleagues were Yankees. The majority of the students were Yankees. I might as well have already moved to Connecticut. They laughed when school was cancelled for half an inch of slush. They followed the Boston Red Sox. I taught with a lot of people who had, “rented a u-haul and driven down to get a job,” because it was a lot easier to get one in NC than it was in the iron fisted union north.

Some people say that northerners are “blunt.” I found that to be true, but I liked it. Let me give you an example with something simple, like the hole-puncher. Some of the teachers required all the kids in their class to have a three ring binder. But I wasn’t punching holes in my worksheets. A southern teacher would have just bitched about the new teacher who didn’t bother to punch holes, then smile when I walked by. Then for all the years we worked together, that woman would be mad I didn’t punch holes. However, a teacher from the north would just say, “Hey, can you punch holes in their worksheets?” Then I would say sure and start doing it, and then there were no hard feelings over something that wasn’t that big of a deal in the great meaning of life anyway. Of course, the next year I just had each kid bring a pocket folder for my class so I didn’t have to worry about it. And thirteen years later I am teaching online, so no one has to punch holes in anything.

The parents were interesting. The moms that volunteered worked really hard. I mean they were determined work horses. If you asked them to cut paper, they cut paper. If you asked them to color a poster, it wasn’t out of the lines. They could dry wall and make Christmas cupcakes with reindeer pretzels on them from scratch for a class of thirty (this was before such things were banned). One parent was supposedly “difficult” or didn’t want to “hear it” about her child. A teacher who had him in her class said, “Well, she is just VERY Manhattan, but I’m VERY Boston, so I can handle her.” I didn’t have a problem with her either really, I just told her he was talking too much and she told him to “SHUT UP DURING SPANISH!” There you go.

My Yankee boss, well, um, she was very by the book. I will say that she never did or said a single thing she didn’t have the right as the boss to do. I remember one time, I was standing in the school lobby and I could see out the front windows, and some guy was honking like a maniac at a woman trying to walk across the street. I said to no one in particular (I was talking to myself, all right? Just call me Smeagol/Gollum) “We don’t honk our horns in the south!” She was standing right behind me. I waited for the fall out, but she just sort of smiled, shook her head, and walked back to her office. To this day I don’t know how I got away with that.

By being in Cary, I learned where everything was in the north. I didn’t realize it was all so “close.” I finally knew that Raymond and his family were on Long Island. Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and The City, and Mad About You were all in New York. I was getting it. The Sopranos were in New Jersey but it didn’t take Meadow long to get to Columbia in the city. Ally McBeal was Boston, as was The Practice, and Fenway Park is there too. That was the same time I was watching and loving Good Will Hunting, where the last place I ever wanted to visit was South Boston. I learned about block parties. That is when everyone pulls all of their grills and chairs and coolers out in the driveways and the kids run wild everywhere and everyone is out and about eating and drinking. So that is what was going on in Pushing Tin. My neighbors from New York tried to get this going, and it worked a little, but she said it was nothing like it was at home. My students who went to New Jersey to visit grandparents always complained that “95 sucks.” They were telling the truth.

My colleagues from the north talked with finality. They knew their stuff and they believed their beliefs. They also enjoyed good meals and good drinks, but they didn’t seem to get sloshed. They talked a lot about how it was better in the south. Things were cheaper and the weather was nicer. A couple of them rarely went home, a lot of them went back every summer, but wouldn’t go for Christmas. When Kevin was offered the job, people said, “Why would you move there when we are all moving here?” Indeed….

(end of part 2)